Because I Could Not Stop for Death
by LaurenKirby
Summary: He needed his brother's death to feel alive; she needed him to live. WARNING: Contains some mature subject matter.


_Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me._

The day he left, was the day she died. Not a true and final death, but an all consuming emptiness that both debilitates and weakens the will to live.

When she offered her love, he showed her his back. When she shed her tears for him, he left her footprints in the dust as he walked away.

His revenge was more important than those that cared for him, this she knew as truth.

A little part of Sakura died the day he left. A little more dies each day he is gone.

At first she tried to fake it; tell everyone she was fine. That she was strong enough to make it own her own. Without him.

Though he was never truly hers to begin with.

He always preferred to be alone anyways.

He wanted nothing but to rid himself of the hatred that fueled his soul; the sadness that threatened to spill over into the world, where everyone would see his pain and his hurt.

He was alone. All alone. Always alone.

He wanted his revenge. Needed it. Would stop at nothing to get it.

Sasuke would even turn his back on his home, the people he had come to care for, in order to see his brother's blood flow freely.

He died the day his parents did, and only his brother's death would bring him back to life.

So he left the tear-stained face and the pleading eyes to walk off into the unknown and let his hatred override his pain.

It would be quite some time before he returns.

As the weeks past, fewer and fewer attempts were made to get Sakura to leave her room. Soon people stopped asking how she was; they were tired of the lies. Soon people stopped trying to draw her out of herself; that only worked with the willing.

Sakura was dead inside. There was no more light in her emerald eyes. The had grown cold and distant, always looking at something no one else could see.

She sat alone. All alone. Always alone.

Her room was dark, the curtains were drawn shut. The sun reminded her too much of the world of possibilities.

Possibilities where he could return to her. Where he wanted to return to her. A world where her heart was whole and her soul felt no longing. A world where living seemed like the better option.

Absentmindedly she traced the faint scars that danced across her wrist in an angry pattern of hate and desperation.

She felt no pain, but she wanted to. She wanted to feel something. She wanted to feel anything. She wanted him. 

Without thinking she reached for the blade that signaled her release. Without flinching, or even looking, she ran the sharpened edge across her skin, allowing the blood that lay dormant in her veins to flow freely, spreading and trickling across her skin.

Still she felt nothing, but she was alive.

He returned after two long years away.

He had completed what he set out to do. Sasuke's brother was dead, by his hand. He was alive again, could live again.

Upon his return, he ventured to the only place he ever had felt at peace. He went to where both his parents rested eternally in the cemetery.

He visited and he talked to them, told them about the hard journey and about the death of their eldest son. But mostly he spoke of the pink haired girl that he left crying at the gates the day he left.

He wanted to see her. He needed to.

On his way out of the cemetery, he came across a tombstone that had not been there upon his departure two long years ago.

Maybe someone's grandfather or grandmother had passed away, or maybe a brave ninja was defeated in battle. Whatever the case was, he felt the need to pay his respects to the fallen.

When he approached, Sasuke could faintly make out the words "_Finally able to rest"._

When he got closer still, a knot formed in his stomach and he felt his heart shatter.

The name on the stone reads _Haruno Sakura_.

The date of death: 6 months after he left her standing there with tears in her eyes.

When he left to kill his bother, Sasuke killed her as well.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Naruto or any of the characters.


End file.
